Ciaron O'Reilly

Australia

Ciaron O'Reilly is long time Catholic Worker, nonviolent resister and Christian anarchist. Ciaron took part in the 1980s civil rights, social justice and free speech movement in Queensland, Australia during the rule of the far-right Premier, Joh Bjelke-Peterson.

During the 1991 Gulf War, Ciaron was a member of the 'ANZUS Ploughshares' group who disarmed a B-52 Bomber which was on 20-minute scramble alert, at Griffis AFB in upstate New York. Their actions put the aircraft out of action for the next two months at the height of the bombing campaign in Iraq. Together with the other members of the group, he was arrested and sentenced to 13 months in the U.S. penal system. After his return to Australia, Ciaron took part in the 'Jabiluka Ploughshares' group action which disabled uranium mining equipment in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1998.

Ciaron is the author of Remembering Forgetting - A Journey of Nonviolent Resistance to the War on East Timor (Otford Press, Australia, 2001). Together with other members of the Brisbane Catholic Worker, he took an active role in highlighting the involvement and complicity of the Australian government, corporate and military sectors in supporting Indonesia's brutal and illegal 25 year occupation of East Timor.

On July 5, 2006 Ciaron went to trial at Dublin's Four Courts for a third time for disarming a U.S. navy war plane at the civilian Shannon Airport, Ireland in the early hours of February 3rd 2003. This group action became known as the Pitstop Ploughshares. Two earlier trials in 2005 ended in mistrial.

Ciaron and four others, Deirdre Clancy, Nuin Dunlop, Karen Fallon and Damien Moran were acquitted by an Irish jury on on 25th July 2006.

from vikipedia